


Rumble

by ravenofthestars



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Everyone is scared, Set after Season 2, Shiro is missing, clean, hunk bakes to relieve stress, hunk is sad and stressed, keith is sad and overworked, lance is sad and unmotivated, no cussing, no relationships - Freeform, not on purpose lol, pidge is caffeine addicted, pidge is sad and overworked, shiro is floating in the abyss, the lions keep them comforted with the mental link, where's my space dad?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:45:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenofthestars/pseuds/ravenofthestars
Summary: After Shiro goes missing, the paladins, including their leader, are in disarray.Five-Part Drabble collection: Lance, Keith, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro





	Rumble

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually written a really long time ago, but I never posted it.  
> July 27, 2017, I think. Which is why all my fanfics are set after season 2 so far. I wrote this in a moment of genius at 2 am after a late night kayak trip.

Lance woke with a start. Ever since Shiro had disappeared, nightmares had plagued his slumber, meaning only four or five hours of sleep per night. His performance in training and strategizing was dropping to an all time low, and the others were starting to notice. Luckily, there was one place he could always go when he needed comfort.   
The walk to the hangar was long and unnervingly quiet, bar the sound of his slippers hitting the floor. Lance creaked open the door, walking past the lions of his fellow paladins until he reached his own.   
“Hey Blue,” he whispered to the lion. She bowed her head in greeting, opening her mouth so her paladin could enter.   
Lance sat down in the pilot’s seat, leaned the chair back, and pulled his blanket on top of him, falling into a dreamless sleep, with the purring of blue resonating deep in his mind. 

|||||><|||||

Keith stood alone in the bridge, staring out at the nothingness in front of him. Ever since Shiro had disappeared, Keith hadn't had a moment of peace. He channeled all his energy into planning and strategizing, and when he wasn't doing that, he was training. He may be fighting for peace between nations, but peace of the mind was poisonous. If he stopped for merely a minute, his grief might catch up to him. He tried not to show it, but Shiro’s loss had really taken a toll on him.   
And so he found himself, for the first time in quite a long time, paying attention to what went on outside of his crazed mind. He took a minute just to look, at the empty space outside the window of the bridge, just to smell the air, with the crisp citrusy smell that was a part of the castle in itself, and to taste the cool breeze, bringing with it the smell of breakfast from the kitchen. And for the first time in weeks, he took the time to listen, to the silence of the castle, and with it the deep, resonating purr of the Red Lion that was there for him, always, even if he wasn't always listening.

|||||><|||||

Pidge jumped at the metallic clanking, caused by the empty soda can she had knocked off the desk. She had been up for hours, and while she spent lots of time staring at a screen, the weeks she had spent doing nothing but programming and translating and planning made her eyes cross. She hadn't been sleeping well, and ever since Shiro’s disappearance, soda had become her lifeline.   
Her head jolted up from where it had been laying on the table. Light brown hair was sticking everywhere, even messier than it usually was. Her tired brown eyes, barely visible under smudged glasses that were completely askew, searched for something to do. She saw the wastebasket, overflowing with aluminum cans. She picked the unusually large trash bin up and carried it back to her desk, where she sat down and began to count.  
“One…”  
“Two…”   
“Three…”  
She thought of her team.   
“Eight…”  
“Nine…”  
“Ten…”  
She thought of her lion.  
“Seventeen…”  
“Eighteen…”  
“Nineteen…”  
She thought of Shiro.   
And as the sleep-deprived girl finally drifted into the slumber that had evaded her for weeks, the only comfort she could find was the deep purring of the Green Lion, resonating within her, and the metallic clanking of the long-forgotten cans, rolling around on the cold floor underneath the desk. 

|||||><|||||

A short segment of beeps filled the kitchen, waking the Yellow Paladin from his half-conscious state. He reached for the coffee pot, pouring some into a mug before adding milk and tons of creamer.  
He hadn't slept well in weeks, which was quite a shock- he was usually a very heavy sleeper. Since Shiro’s disappearance, every team member had been having trouble. Lance was having trouble staying focused, Keith was overworking himself, Pidge was trying to pick up everyone’s slack (including her own), and none of them had been sleeping.  
Shiro’s disappearance had taken a toll on Hunk as well, but not nearly as much as the pain of his fellow paladins. He was the one who was supposed to feel the emotions of his team and help to keep them stable, like a leg. He could push his sadness aside, but when they were off their game, so was he. More so than usual.   
And as he sat, sipping his coffee and thinking about the sorrows of his friends, and how he couldn't find a way to help them, no matter how hard they tried, the only sounds were the soft whirr of the coffee machine and the deep resonating purr of the Yellow Lion, always there to comfort him. 

|||||><|||||

The paladin awoke with a grimace. Shiro’s eyes flickered open, blinking in the brightness of the planet closest to him. Though it was miles away, the small planet reflected the light of the sun it orbited, slightly blinding him. He raised his hand to shield his face, just enough to survey his surroundings.   
Shiro’s armor was the only thing protecting him as he drifted around in space. His jetpack was broken, his comm full of static. He was stuck, unable to help himself.  
“Stay calm,” he told himself. “They'll find you.”  
But the black paladin did not know if he would be found. He didn't know if the built-in GPS in his armor was functional. He didn't know if his team was safe. He didn't know if Zarkon had fully eliminated the Galra Empire’s biggest threat. He didn't know anything for sure, except for the fact that he was floating uncontrollably through the abyss.  
And so he closed his eyes, beginning his descent into a dreamless slumber.   
“Please,” Shiro whispered to himself, disturbing the thick silence settled all around him.  
The only reply was the deep, resonating purr of the Black Lion, trying to comfort her pilot from where she rested, millions of light-years away.

**Author's Note:**

> Lance: 150 words  
> Keith: 209 words  
> Pidge: 214 words  
> Hunk: 211 words  
> Shiro: 205 words  
> Altogether: 989 words
> 
> The title came from the way the purring of the lions comforts each of the paladins as they need it.
> 
> Lance and Keith's aren't very long, because it was more like a warm up and I was still trying to keep it below the customary 100-word count for a drabble (it didn't work, as you can see). I'm still calling them drabbles though. They're short.
> 
> (Pidge's part is my favorite, if you're curious)


End file.
